TWENTY-NINE
Ruac Cave, 30,000 BP
Tal awoke, covered from head to feet in sweat, the taste of Soaring Water still on his tongue. He tried to remember what had just happened but he was unable.
He felt between his legs and stroked his erect member. Uboas was a few feet away, lying on a beautifully lush bison skin, the last beast killed in their bi-annual hunt. She was asleep, wrapped in a reindeer skin blanket, and had not been well. He could have woken her and satisfied himself but he chose to let her sleep till the morning light entered the mouth of the cave.
He stroked himself until he was satisfied then rolled himself in skins to warm himself against the night chill. He ran his hand over his own bison skin which was starting to get thin and patchy. It was from a kill he had made as a young man. Not his first – that trophy had gone to his father, but his second. That was his to keep. He remembered the spear throw that had taken the animal. He could still see the shaft flying fast and straight, the flint tip, slipping perfectly between the ribs and sinking deeply. He remembered it vividly, even though it had occurred a very long time ago.
As he felt the animal’s fur bristling between his fingers, suddenly, in a flash of blinding light as if he had looked into the sun, the remembrance of the soaring came back to him. He began to shiver.
He was flying over a herd of bison, close enough to reach out and touch a powerful, muscular shoulder of one of the beasts. He felt, as he always did, the exultation of effortless flight, the honour of moving with the herd, of being one with them. In pleasure, he stretched his arms to their fullest and spread his fingers to the wind.
Then, he was aware of something strange, an alien presence closing in on him. He always soared alone but he sensed there was someone or something else intruding on his realm. He turned his head and saw it.
A long, sleek figure, swooping down on him, like a hawk after prey.
It had the head of a lion but the body of a man. Its arms were tucked against its body, allowing it to cut through the air like a spear. And it was aiming for him.
He flapped his arms to pick up speed but could go no faster. The herd of bison parted, half going right, half going left. He wanted to turn to follow along but he was unable to change directions. He was flying on his own, low, the tall grasses of the plain tickling his bare body. The lion man was getting closer and closer. He could see it open its mouth and snarl, and had a notion how its hot saliva would feel against his flesh the instant before its fangs clamped down on his leg.
The cliffs were approaching and beyond them, the river.
He did not know why but he believed if only he could make it across the river, he would be safe. He had to make it over the river.
The lion man was on him. Its mouth was open, its jaw ready to clamp down.
He was at the cliffs.
There was the river, silver in the sun.
He felt a drop of hot saliva on his ankle.
And he was back in the cave.
He pondered the meaning of the experience. The ancestors were giving him a warning, no doubt. He would have to be on alert, but he was always so. It was the responsibility of the head of the Bison Clan. He had to protect his people. But who would protect him?
He reached over to try to touch Uboas but his fingers could only reach her bison skin. The honour of that bison’s death had been given to the son of Tal’s son, Mem. This exceptional young man, who bore the name Tala, in honour of his grandfather, was more like Tal than Mem ever was.
Tala took an interest in plants and healing, was a keen flint knapper, and had the same ability as Tal to capture the power and majesty of a galloping horse in a flowing outline of charcoal and graphite. Tal had always loved the boy as if he were his second son, because alas, his real second son, Kek, had gone out hunting one day, on his own, which was the way he liked to venture out, to keep proving his courage to his father. He was perpetually angry and frustrated, given to bursts of pique against his older brother and even his father, lacking the temperament to be a second son. He had never returned. They searched for him and found nothing. Again, a long time ago.
In the quiet of the cave and the deepness of the night, Tal wanted to sleep a dead, black sleep, a sleep without dreams. A pure escape to nothingness, to give himself respite from his fears and apprehensions would have been a gift, but he could not drift off. He would have to leave soon and spare Uboas the rage.
He tried to think about happy things, the pride he had in his son, Mem, his love for his grandson, the certainty that the Bison Clan would be in good hands based on the issuance of his loins. But then, the old thoughts invaded his mind, dark thoughts that began to blacken his mind, the harbinger of Tal’s Anger.
It had snuck up on him, the way a man sneaks up on a reindeer drinking from a pond.
One day, years earlier, he realised that Uboas was growing old, and he was not. The notion was easy to dismiss at first, but as time went on, her hair became streaked with white and her skin, once as smooth as a bird’s egg, wrinkled. Her breasts, once firm, began to sag. She started to walk with a limp and often-times favoured her knees and took to rubbing them with a poultice Tala prepared for her.
And his son, Mem, was ageing too. As the seasons changed and the years rolled on, Mem began to look more like his brother than his son, and now, he looked older still. In time, Tala and he would appear a similar age, he reckoned.
In fact, all his people grew old in front of his eyes. The old ones died, the young ones aged, new ones were born. The cycle of life continued for all but him.
It was almost as if the river of time had stopped for Tal but flowed on for everyone else.
The older men of the clan would talk about this mystery in small groups and the younger men would chatter about him when they were out on a hunt. The women would whisper when they were together sewing hides or butchering a carcass or scaling fish.
Tal was a head man like no other. For his strengths and abilities, for his protection of the clan, he was loved. For his power over time, he was feared.
Uboas became sad and withdrawn. She was the head man’s mate but her status had waned over the years as she first became barren and later became increasingly decrepit. Younger, unmated women looked at Tal’s muscular body hungrily, and she imagined that he might steal off and lie with them.
But no one was more troubled than Mem. It was his destiny to become head man and he desperately wanted that to happen. He had always loved and revered Tal but over time he had become more of a rival. Now, he seemed older than his own father and he imagined dying first and never ascending to head of the clan.
Father and son hardly spoke. A word here, a grunt there. Tal gravitated to his grandson for his want of filial affection and it was Tala who accompanied Tal to paint in the sacred cave. Mem resented this. In his youth, he had been the chosen one to paint side by side with his father, and it was he who had made the first of many handprints that had so delighted Tal. Now, it was Tala who was given the honour. He might have been proud, but instead he was jealous.
When the time came for initiation to manhood, the boys of the Bison Clan would still be taken to the cave, given the bowl of Soaring Water and when they could stand, Tal would lead them ever deeper to pay homage to the creatures who deserved their respect.
The bison, above all, their spirit kin in the animal world, their brothers.
The horse, who because of their swiftness and cunning could never be conquered.
The mammoth, who thundered the ground, could destroy any foe with a flick of its tusks and feared nothing, man included.
The bear and the lions, the rulers of the night, who were more likely to kill a man than be killed.
Tal never painted the reindeer. Though they were abundant, they were stupid and easy to kill. They did not deserve his respect. They were food. Nor did he give his respect to the lowly creatures of the land, the mouse, the vole, the bat, the fish, the beaver. They were to be eaten, not lauded.
Tal partook of the Soaring Water regularly, as often as five or six times every cycle of the moon. Soaring gave
